Canadian Blog Site SHUT DOWN By Court Order...

Yes, you read that right. Calgary's Chief of Police, Jack Beaton siezed a computer from a private home that belonged to a blogger who was critical of him and his staff. A sweeping gag order was also issued to all those involved in the case.

NealeNews links the story from CBC News. Russ Brown, a Canadian legal expert at the University of Alberta says:

[T]he method Beaton used "is the most extraordinary civil remedy that can be issued pretrial."

But the fact remains that this remedy is legal in Canada because its citizens have no guaranty of their freedom of speech. And apparently even local government officials have this authority.

Here is the content of the website in question: Angry In The Great White North. Scary stuff.

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New Study: Drinking increases pleasure of smoking...

OK, anyone who's ever smoked would put this under the category of "DUH!". As reported in the U.K. Telegraph, scientists have recently completed a study on drinking and smoking and have come to an obvious conclusion:

Contrary to a previous theory that nicotine offsets the sedative effects of drinking, they believe that alcohol increases the amount of the chemical messenger dopamine released in "reward" areas of the brain and therefore increases the enjoyment gained from smoking.

Now I admit - freely - that at one time I was (gasp) a "social" smoker. In my early Twenties, I used to hang out with the people I worked with at the local watering hole. And after a beer or two, I would "bum" a smoke off of someone.

Well, if you believe this report, something must have clicked in my brain on those occasions because before I knew it I was buying my own cigarettes. For about two years I would smoke about a pack or so a day. Damn that alcohol!!

Look, alcohol and nicotine are both drugs. They both throw your system for a loop. So it stands to reason that - combined - they add up to a good time. Luckily for me, at about the time I met my wife, I decided to quit - cold turkey. And now I am one of the biggest anti-smoking bastards there is.

Unluckily for me, Gandalf still likes his beer. But hey, ditching one out of two bad habits is - as Bill Murray said in the movie "Kingpin" - "still, very good."

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METS WIN!!

The NY Mutts have hit the .500 mark! Yes, Virginia, there IS a Santa Claus!

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Join me, little one...

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Damn! Wal-Mart doesn't take Republic Credits?!?

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Iraqis dig up the remains of 5,000 more of Saddam's countrymen...

Okay, so Iraq wasn't riddled with WMD's (they're all in Syria right now). But here's another reason why that country - and the region - is better off without that SOB sitting comfortably in his Presidential palace. Since the Baathists have scattered, mass graves have been unearthed to show the remains of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis that the Butcher of Baghdad had murdered.

The graves, discovered over the past three months, have not yet been dug up because of the risks posed by the continuing insurgency and the lack of qualified forensic workers, said Bakhtiar Amin, Iraq's interim human rights sinister. But initial excavations have substantiated the accounts of witnesses to a number of massacres. If the estimated body counts prove correct, the new graves would be among the largest in the grim tally of mass killings that have gradually come to light since the fall of Mr. Hussein's government two years ago. At least 290 grave sites containing the remains of some 300,000 people have been found since the American invasion two years ago, Iraqi officials say.

When his trial is over, I hope he gets hanging by piano wire. Or better yet, he should be locked in a room with over a hundred family members of people he has had liquidated until he stops breathing.

Isn't it wonderful that these atrocities don't make the evening news? Maybe the MSM thinks that if they bury these stories that they can make Saddam a sympathetic figure during the trials.

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Chirac to France: A "No" Vote Helps The U.S...

If there is anyone that had ANY doubt that France sucks and is - in fact - an undeclared enemy of the United States, this should be the clincher. French President "Black" Jacques Chirac stated unequivocally that the French people must vote in favor of the EU Constitution because failure to do so would benefit America. In other words, they must band together to oppose us - just like France has always done.

What a complete douche bag. More from Chirac:

"Europe must be strong, it must have the power to survive in tomorrow's world," said the French president.

Since when is the U.S. threatening Europe? We'd just as soon not even have to talk to these cheese-eating surrender monkeys, but the fact that they are supposed to be our "allies" means that we have to.

The latest is that the "no" vote currently has the edge. I hope that this is, in fact, the final vote so Chirac will look like a smacked ass to the rest of his European buddies.

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Illinois Idiots Give "Adopt-a-Highway" sign to NAMBLA...

From the Chicago Tribune - the State of Illinois apparently accepted an application from the North American Man-Boy Love Association (NAMBLA) to "adopt" a stretch of road in Arlington Heights, IL. Along that part of the road that the group has volunteered to keep litter-free there is an official State sign featuring the "Adopt-a-Highway" logo in huge letters, followed by the organization's name and the slogan "Keep Illinois Clean".

The author of the editorial, John Kass, is rightly pissed about this:

[NAMBLA] advocates changing those old-fashioned laws about sex with minors, including very young kids. It advocates pedophilia. The only time pedophiles should be cleaning highways is when they are accompanied by prison guards and wearing leg-irons and bright orange uniforms. Pedophiles should never be released from prison. They can't be rehabilitated. There's something inside them beyond repair.

But there they were on the highway--NAMBLA and KEEP ILLINOIS CLEAN."

Our politicians all jumped to get publicity on that registered sex-offender law," Broehl said, "even if the list includes some kid who was 17 and had sex with his 15-year-old girlfriend after school, he's a sex offender. The politicians were all over it. But NAMBLA gets to adopt a highway. Fantastic."

Would someone who lives near this fiasco please go out there with a drill and remove this freaking sign? What are these pedophile scumbags going to do? Let them sue!!

Hat Tip to James Taranto's Best of the Web

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"Tomb Raider" Youth Charged With Stealing Head From Crypt...

This comes under the "you can't make this stuff up" files. VT newspaper, The Times-Argus, reports that a local teenage kid has been arrested for breaking into a cemetery and stealing the head of one of it's permanent residents.

Nickolas Buckalew, 17, already has a long rap sheet and reportedly tried to commit suicide while in custody. The "victim" of the crime had been dead for about three years.

Authorities are not sure of the motive for the crime. Court documents said the suspect allegedly talked of using the man's head as a "bong," a pipe for smoking marijuana.

You gotta hand it to the kid, at least he's resourceful.

Hat Tip to: Drudge

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Jacko Song Parody...

OK, I've pretty much stayed away from this whole mess, but this is funny.

Warning: You'll never be able to listen to "The Way You Make Me Feel" that same way again.

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AZ Senator John McCain not a GOP candidate in '08...

No he didn't make an announcement or anything. He just said to Chris Matthews yesterday that he will vote against ending judicial filibusters.

Unless McCain is stupid (and he certainly is not) or has a tin ear for politics (which he also does not) he knows that the Republican base - who already holds him at arms-length - will never vote for him if he essentially sides with the Democrats on blocking Bush's judicial nominations.

So yesterday's statement - for all intents and purposes - takes him completely out of the running. I don't think he had a reasonable chance at the nomination anyway, but at this point the possibility of him raising the kind of funds for even an "exploratory committee" on a potential candidacy just went down like Monica Lewinsky.

I am wary of one possible scenario in 2008, however: that McCain will emulate his hero Teddy Roosevelt and become the "Bull Moose" third-party candidate of the 21st Century. If that happens, all hell will break loose and Hillary may just get her return trip to the White House after all.

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Bush's Opening Pitch Makes History...

"I am a baseball fan, and I love great moments in baseball," Mr. Bush said yesterday morning in an interview in the Oval Office. "Tonight, for me personally, is going to be a great moment for baseball. It is also a great thrill as a baseball fan to be invited to throw out a pitch."

Oh yeah, that's another reason why John "Francois" Kerry would've made a lousy President. Because, as he demonstrated at Fenway Park last October, he throws like a sally-boy.

UPDATE: Jokers to the Right has an even better photo here.

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Cox & Forkum 'toon on the Bolton nomination...

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Pie in the Sky Liberals throwing hissy-fits...

George Neumayr has a great piece today in The American Spectator about the angry Left - specifically the aging ex-hippy radicals whose frustration is being displayed in all it's ugliness in so many ways lately.

The left's feelings of impotent 1960s-style rage can be measured in Drudge Report headlines, such as: "Website sells 'Kill Bush' T-Shirts," and in Drudge's now weekly links to stories about pundits pied by liberals who clearly regard their victims as members of a new establishment. Like children who hurl their baby food as a form of protest, liberals in a state of infantile, frustrated rationality are reduced to tossing sugary and oily products at Bill Kristol and Pat Buchanan and stomping their feet at Ann Coulter.

Underneath the robes, vestments, and suits they collected during their march through the institutions remained the grubby attire of radicalism only now visible as they return to their posture of primitive protesting -- a wild, speechless style of protest that throws light on liberalism's essential hostility to reason and morality. Why do liberals who regard themselves as apostles of Enlightenment reason resort so quickly to intimidation and primitive exertion of will? Because fundamentally liberalism is based not on reason but on force. It is a willfulness writ large that becomes more vivid as liberals lose power and fail to control a people unpersuaded by claims that find no basis in reality and thus cannot be calmly demonstrated by reason.

The more power they lose, the whackier they get. And they seem to have no concern for how stupid and childish they look doing it.

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When Will Frist Act?

Every damn week, I keep hearing that Sen. Majority Leader Bill Frist is going to actually enforce a rules change to stop the unconstitutional filibustering of President Bush's judicial nominees. And every time I hear it they keep saying the exact same thing: it will happen "in the next few weeks". They've been reporting this for the last few months.

I'm getting pretty impatient and quite frustrated that the standard response is that he will definitely do it, as soon it's clear that a compromise with the Democrats is no longer a possibility. HELLO?

Maybe Frist hasn't been keeping up with current events here, but exactly when have the Democrats shown that a compromise with them on ANYTHING is possible, much less one regarding these nominations?

A story in today's Washington Post reads:

"Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist is all but certain to press for a rule change that would ban filibusters of judicial nominations in the next few weeks..." [my emphasis]

And Drudge is featuring this story right now as a "flash". Here's a flash: nothing is happening! Is the MSM just rehashing the same pool report over and over or does this just seem to go on forever? By this summer at least one Supreme Court Justice will retire - most likely Rehnquist. If this filibuster bullsh*t has not been taken care of my then, the fight will be all the more difficult.

Let's get a move on, Senator! It's time to stop pussy-footing around and go balls to the wall here. Cry havoc! And let slip the dogs of war!

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Captain Ed Weighs In On the "Connecticut Compromise"...

Ed Morrissey at Captain's Quarters Blog sees today's news from CT from an interesting perspective. In his estimation, the State "got it right" in the way it handled the proposed bill on civil unions.

"Both sides got some piece of victory, while the centrists won the day. Connecticut will not recognize gay marriage, which fits with the will of the electorate. On the other hand, the legislature made a perfectly rational decision about reinforcing contract law by allowing two adults to form a legal partnership that regulates the public portion of their lives. For libertarians, this makes perfect sense; it allows couples who either are unable or unwilling to marry assign each other next-of-kin relationships, form financial partnerships, and establish legally defensible rights to certain civil benefits formerly excluded from them. This also appears to meet the will of the electorate."

In one sense he's absolutely correct. This bill is the kind of compromise that demonstrates how opposing interests can achieve a "win-win" when the debate is amicable and reciprocal. However, as I discussed earlier today, the overly aggressive actions of a judiciary that continually oversteps its constitutional powers can make today's equitable resolution a disaster waiting to explode.

The problem lies in that the activists on the Left will continue to seek policy change, not through popular support (which they cannot get) but rather by means of judicial fiat. The amendment to the bill that amounts to a "Defense of Marriage" clause will undoubtedly be seen by some advocates of same-sex marriage as enough of a "poison pill" to cause them to withdraw their support for this bill and try again. For the real agenda of gay activism is same-sex marriage, plain and simple. This would have been to them nothing more than an incremental step toward the larger goal.

But as Morrissey points out:

"Marriage is a public act, and the people have the standing to regulate it."

And, as of now, the people are overwhelmingly against accepting a homosexual relationship as the legal or desirable equivalent of a heterosexual marriage.

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Quote Of The Day...

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Connecticut House ok's civil union legislation, heads to State Senate...

One half of of the CT General Assembly has crafted and approved legislation to recognize "civil unions" between gay couples. Before sending it on to the Senate, however, a provision was added (to the bill that originated in the Senate) to emphasize that the State does not consider civil unions to be the same as marriage.

"The House bill sends an unambiguous message about our commitment to fight discrimination, promote civil rights and preserve the traditional institution of marriage," [Governor Jodi] Rell, a Republican, said in a written statement.

Several Democrats in the legislature, however, objected to the added language:

Rep. Art Feltman, D-Hartford, an openly gay legislator, said the amendment was an insult. He said civil unions were "separate and unequal" to marriage, and drew comparisons to the black quest for civil rights in the 1950s and 1960s.

"This is analogous to me as if we were to be given a seat on the bus, but at the back of the bus; or to sit at the lunch counter, but on a separate side of the counter," he said. "But I understand societal evolution is slow and gradual."

The problem is that Rep. Feltman doesn't understand that recognition of marriage is not a right, it is a privilege granted by the State government which has the Constitutional authority to define the institution. And a State government must be answerable to the majority will of the governed. The analogy to being able to sit at a lunch counter or ride a bus is specious, at best. Feltman also says that societal evolution is slow and gradual. "Evolution" is not the word I would use, but he is correct in the idea that societal change is slow and gradual. This is something most gay rights activists fail to understand. If they had the patience to try and convince society of the merits of their argument over an extended period of time, they might have more popular success. But they want gay marriage and they want it now.

Connecticut is on it's way to becoming the third State to pass civil union legislation, after Vermont and Massachusetts. The additional language addressing the marriage issue notwithstanding, there is no guaranty that the State courts will not rule - as did the MA courts - that not recognizing gay marriage is "unconstitutional". And the 20 States that have amended their constitutions to ban gay marriage have to hold out hope that the Federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) will not be overturned by the Supreme Court.

The possibility of either of these scenarios is why I support an Amendment to the U.S. Constitution defining marriage as between one man and one woman. The Amendment would allow States, at their discretion, to recognize or not recognize civil unions and to set the parameters for them - all with the consent of the majority of its citizens. And the issue of gay marriage would then be taken out of the realm of the judiciary for good.

I personally don't have a problem with allowing homosexual couples to share some of the legal rights as married couples - such as property rights, filing joint tax returns and shared health benefits. But the agenda that is driving this will not stop until those pursuing it have achieved nothing short of full and equal recognition of gay marriage, enforced in every single State. The Federal Marriage Amendment would put a stop to that while giving homosexual couples the legal rights that gay activists claim to be are fighting for.

If those pushing this bill now withdraw their support because of the additional marriage language, it will be proof that they only ever considered this a first step in the fight for legalization of same-sex marriage.

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FDA backs proposal to lift ban on silicone breast implants...

From the AP this morning.

"In a surprising turnaround, federal health advisers Wednesday recommended allowing silicone-gel breast implants to return to the U.S. market after a 13-year ban on most uses of the devices - but only under strict conditions that will limit how easily women can get them."

Now if we could only get a ban on breast-reductions in place...

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Helen Thomas doesn't just ask stupid questions...

She writes stupid columns too. Right-Wing News skewers her latest - where she looks down her nose at bloggers.

The biggest mistake John Kennedy ever made was not the Bay of Pigs. It was establishing the precedent of humoring this partisan hack at press conferences, which led to her being a staple in the White House briefing room - and major annoyance to every Republican President since.

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